Interview with Mimi Guarneri

Mimi Guarneri is the founder and Medical Director of Scripps Center for Integrative
Medicine in San Diego, which blends allopathic care with
evidence-based complementary treatments and therapies. Board certified in
cardiology and internal medicine, Dr. Guarneri is the author of numerous
articles that have appeared in such journals as the Annals of Internal Medicine
and the Journal of Echocardiology. She has been nominated for the Bravewell
Award in IM Leadership and honored by the American Heart Association. Her
recently published book is titled "The Heart Speaks: A Cardiologist Reveals the
Secret Language of Healing." She recently spoke at the Ruth Stricker Lecture
sponsored by the Center for Spirituality & Healing. You may view this
presentation at the Center's website - www.csh.umn.edu.

Please briefly describe
your background and your area of expertise. Dr. Guarneri: I'm a
cardiologist by training. I started out as an interventional cardiologist, which
basically means that I put in stents and did angioplasty. I am board certified
in internal medicine, cardiology, nuclear cardiology, and holistic medicine. My
practice is really one of cardiovascular disease.

Is there a
person or experience that has guided your career?Dr. Guarneri:
There have been many, many things that have guided me on my way. First and
foremost has been my own personal experience - my own growth - which has evolved
over many years of treating my patients. It has been through my patients that I
have learned many important lessons of the heart, especially the fact that the
heart is affected by emotions, and that how we live our lives is as important as
the type of food that we put into our bodies. My own personal journey has been
one in which I've spent a lot of time doing my own spiritual practice,
meditation, and lifestyle change. Through that process I have really come to
realize that there are many paths to healing and that health is truly much more
than just the absence of disease.

What are
some of the most exciting things happening in the area of integrative medicine
right now?Dr. Guarneri: I think the most exciting thing in
alternative medicine is that we are starting to have some of the tools like
functional MRIs that allow us to begin to understand things that we could not
understand before, such as what happens to the brain during meditation. [It
gives us the ability to] look at the affect of acupuncture on the brain, and so
on. We are coming to a level where in order to change medicine, we need to be
able to understand and explain some of these things, and we're reaching a point
where maybe we have the kind of technology that allows us to do
that.

Do you see the coming decade as an era of increased integration?Dr.
Guarneri: I see the coming decade as, hopefully, a time when we won't
have to call it "integrative medicine" anymore, and we can just call it
"medicine" - a time when we focus on treating the whole person. Mind,
body, and spirit are all important. From the standpoint of cardiology,
we have to realize that we can't just give somebody a statin, but we
have to look at what is going on with someone in their life, their
environment, their family, how they're eating, how they're living their
lives.

To me this is very basic, and should be what medicine is. We can
bring in modalities that were historically called "alternative" in
Western medicine. That will happen as we begin to understand that
things like Traditional Chinese Medicine have been around for 5,000
years. It's kind of silly that we're trying to validate that, but we
will hopefully come to understand it in terms of our paradigm, or shift
our paradigm so that we can use some of these modalities.

What do you see as the greatest challenge facing integrative medicine today?Dr.
Guarneri: I think there are two big challenges. We have to respect that
Western medicine has been around for a very long time in its current,
conventional form, and it takes a long time to change. We have to
educate medical students, physicians, nurses, and health care
practitioners on both sides. So, we have to educate the alternative
world about the Western world, and we have to educate the Western world
about some of these alternative modalities. We need to look at health
through a new set of lenses coming together. There's also the issue of
what is paid for in the United States. Much of medicine in this country
is dictated by what insurance companies cover, so many people are
forced to do only what is covered. So that means maybe having to choose
surgery over acupuncture. I think we need to look to a different model
of insurance as well.

What is something people can do to achieve and maintain overall health?Dr.
Guarneri: I think a simple thing we can do is to be conscious of the
food that we put into our bodies because that's a choice. Every time we
choose to eat, we make a choice of what we are going to eat. I think we
can also do something very simple which is to remember that we always
have our breath, and that when we feel anxious, upset, or angry, we
remember to a deep breath. And, that we remember to park far away from
our destination, so that we can get some exercise in throughout the
day.

In an era of so much competing information on nutrition, where do you recommend people turn for advice?Dr.
Guarneri: I think if I had to pick the world's perfect diet, it would
be the vegetarian, vegan diet. I think the research is overwhelming in
support of this type of diet. People need to look at some of books like
Vibrant Living, which is a wonderful cookbook. People need to
explore the area of raw foods, and need to look at the Mediterranean
diet if they're not ready to become a vegan or vegetarian. People need
to get rid of the chemicals in their lives. I just love Mitch Gainer's
book, Nurture Nature, Nurture Health, which is about
environmental causes of disease. It really is an eye-opener for people
to look at things like partially-hydrogenated oils, hormones added to
meat, high-fructose corn syrup, etc. that I believe are really causing
a lot of chronic illness in our country.

What is a common health-related mistake that you frequently see in your patients? Dr.
Guarneri: Many people are eating foods that are inflammatory, that cause
inflamation. That's probably the most common mistake. So, foods that
are high in sugar, foods that are high on the glycemic index - like
white flour, for example. [Instead more focus needs to be on] foods
like salmon, sardine, and trout that are high in omega-3s. Most of the
chronic disease that we see now is the result of inflammation, so I
think that if we can just clean out the pantry and get rid of
everything fried and processed, and encourage people to stick with
whole grains, green vegetables, nuts, fruit, and maybe, if necessary,
some wild salmon, then all of a sudden people will start to see how
their bodies will change and how they can come to feel better.

What is your next professional endeavor?

Dr.
Guarneri: For me personally, after completing the Scipps Center for
Integrative Medicine, which is launching its second phase of
renovation, I want to look more into global healing, and do something
in that arena.